It is common practice to drop bombs joined together as an aggregate and to then release the individual bombs from that aggregate. In order to provide translational movement of individual bombs relative to each other, the aggregate is set spinning as it is dropped so that when the bombs are released they spin off from each other. A disadvantage of such a system is that, although translational movement is imparted to the individual bombs, each continues to spin at the angular velocity of the aggregate. The primary object of this invention is to provide a means for de-spinning such bombs once they have been released.
The bombs noted above may be explosive or incendiary devices, or they may carry fire extinguishing material or the like. The invention has further application to groups to satellites which may be similarly released. A key advantage to the invention is that it provides a passive means for de-spinning a number of independently functional bodies without the requirement of substantial additional masses such as used in the satellite de-spinning systems shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,030,049 to Pilkington et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 3,229,930 to Fedor et al. Further, although total de-spinning of individual bodies is possible, proper design of the passive system enables any degree of change to the spin.